The sport of music with chamber music unbound
12th annual Sierra SUmmer Festival starts Wednesdayu
Chamber music might be considered a team sport in which all players reach the finish line at the same time. If so, the Unbound Chamber Music Festival could be considered a World Cup of chamber music. Except in this sport there is no sense of competition, but rather of collaboration.
This year’s Festival represents the 12th summer of musical sport in Mammoth. The Festival had its genesis when violinist Rebecca Hang and cellist Brian Schuldt “discovered” the resort town back in 1998, thanks to a grant from Chamber Music America’s Rural Residencies Program. Clearly they were happy to be here; the name of their piano trio proves it—Felici. These happy ones established the summer festival, the Trio, and myriad music education opportunities.
When I met with Hang and Schuldt at Black Velvet Coffee this week, Hang could hardly contain her excitement over this summer’s program.
The Festival’s opener on July 23 should be a doozy: A Beethoven paired with Schubert’s A jump into the breathtaking waters of a Beethoven Trio for piano, clarinet and cello, swimming through a Dohnanyi serenade, to land on the shores of the powerful, tumultuous, and moving Schubert String Quartet in D minor called “Death and the Maiden” (Corey Cerovsek and Rebecca Hang, violins, Robert Brophy, viola, and Brian Schuldt, cello).
The “Goodcellas” concert (July 28) is likely to rock with music for a gang of cellos: tangos on the theme of angels by Piazzola and Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras #1. A Mozart clarinet quintet and an exotic Prokofiev work round out this concert.
“There are pieces we play in this festival that we love, and then a few years later they’re back because we can’t live without them,” says Hang. “But this piece we haven’t played before.” She is referring to another Beethoven work, the String Quintet in C Major, known as the “Storm” quintet, which absolutely sounds like a storm approaching and then breaking open. Maybe the Eastern Sierra skies will provide a natural accompaniment (July 30).
Two new Festival musicians—French violinist Guillaume Sutre and Korean harpist Kyunghee Kim-Sutre—will bring to life the Saint-Saens Fantasy for Violin and Harp on Aug. 4 in a program of music by Max Reger (Serenade for Flute, Violin and Viola) and Brahms (Piano Quintet in F minor).
Franz Schubert is back for the Festival finale on Aug. 8. Violinists Corey Cerovsek and Rebecca Hang, violist Amadi Azikiwe, and cellist Mark Kosower perform the one movement String Quartet in C minor, the “Quartettsatz.”
Kosower and pianist Jee-Won-Oh play a Brahms sonata for cello and piano, and both the concert and Festival come to a close with Mendelssohn’s Piano Sextet (Mendelssohn was 15 years old when he composed this piece, and the remarkable youngster not only wrote music, he also painted and wrote poetry). The musicians for this piece include violinists Guillaume Sutre and Rebecca Hang, violist Amadi Azikiwe, bassist Oscar Hidalgo, and pianist Steven Vanhauwaert.
Perhaps the true value of the Felici Trio lies in the way they present the whole experience. Sure, you can go to the concerts and listen to the music, but you can also go to a master class and feel as though you’re participating, as you listen to a master teacher guide a student through the nuances of a piece of music, exploring composer’s intent, or various ways to shade a passage, or how to interpret a piece emotionally or through technique.
Master classes amplify the quality of the classical listening experience and offer a glimpse inside the music. A student plays a prepared piece for a master teacher in front of an audience, and the master provides guidance on technique, interpretation and phrasing, often using anecdotes about the composer.
When the student plays the piece again, incorporating what he/she has learned, the teacher and the audience hear the piece in a whole new way.
Master classes are each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from July 22-31, at 3:30 p.m. in the lobby at Cerro Coso College.
Beyond the master classes, for aspiring musicians of any age, three educational programs take place during the summer festival: the Sierra Academy of Music, a two-week music academy for string players and pianists aged 14-24; the Chamber Ensemble Workshop for adult musicians with ensemble coaching sessions; and the Sierra Academy of Music Prep Program, a day camp for young musicians aged 12-16.
Local kids have been learning the value of this music since the Unbound programs came to town at the turn of the century. Hang calls the first generation of those kids the “pioneers,” because it was all really new to them. As they’ve gone on to college, many of them have kept up with the music, whether studying performance or sound engineering or incorporating music as a minor.
“We are proud that our student Sakura Tsai is now a performer with the Festival,” Schuldt and Hang said.
The Unbound Chamber Music Festival runs for three weeks, from July 23 through Aug. 8. See schedules, bios and ticket information at chambermusicunbound.org.
